ECR Minerals PLC (AIM:ECR) said it has been granted two new gold exploration tenements in Victoria, Australia.
The company’s Australian subsidiary, Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd (MGA), is already conducting exploration work at the Bailieston and Creswick gold projects in central Victoria and the addition of the two new tenements will increase the subsidiary’s permitted gold exploration area to 523 km2 in the state.
One tenement (EL006907) is strategically placed between the historically rich Ballarat East-Nerrina goldfield and the current exploration licence at Creswick and is believed to host the source veining for much of the alluvial gold within the Creswick deep lead alluvial system, ECR said.
“The granting of license EL006907 linking Creswick to Ballarat East-Nerrina goldfield was something our former CEO Craig Brown always viewed as a key step in developing our Creswick interests and our understanding of the Dimocks Main Shale,” said chairman David Tang.
He added that the company was actively engaged in a search for a new chief executive. ECR previously announced that Brown had unexpectedly died at the end of October.
The second tenement (EL007484) covers the historic alluvial goldfields of the Tambo River and Swifts Creek.
ECR said it was delighted that the long-awaited license grants for the two tenements have been awarded to MGA.
MGA is still awaiting the final grant of EL006713 (Creswick) and EL007486 (Tambo South), which are both adjacent to the newly approved tenements. If approved, MGA will have exploration licenses covering the majority of the ground linking Ballarat and Creswick – an exciting and challenging prospect given the historical abundance of alluvial gold and under-explored nature of the region, ECR said.